'Dancing with the Stars' Chuck Wicks: Hough engagement coming

The 29-year-old country singer says he and Hough -- his 21-year-old girlfriend turned Dancing with the Stars professional partner -- have a "great, great relationship" and have discussed getting engaged.

"We definitely talk about it. It's definitely in the future," Wicks told tvguide.com in a recent interview. "It's one of those things where it's supposed to be a surprise! I'll tell you this -- I'm not going to do it on the show, but it's not like we don't talk about it or think about it or we don't know that that's the next step. All in due time."

"Right now we love where we are and we definitely want to grow from where we are. That's like the safest answer in the world, huh?" he added with a laugh.

Wicks' engagement talk would seem to contradict the recent statements made by Hough, who had denied that the couple was engaged and stated that the couple was "not in any rush" to get married last December.

Should the couple get engaged, it will actually mark the second engagement for Hough, who made her Dancing with the Stars debut while dancing with eventual champion Apolo Anton Ohno on the show's Spring 2007 fourth season.

Despite being only 18 years old at the time of her Dancing debut, Hough was already engaged to Zach Wilson, whom she had been dating for a year and had met in Salt Lake City when she was only 9 years old and he was 14 years old.

However their relationship failed to survive Hough's newfound fame. After calling off her August 2007 wedding to Wilson off three months before it was set to occur but insisting they were still together, the couple later split for good.

Wilson later competed on Dance War: Bruno vs. Carrie Ann as a member of the competition's winning "Team Bruno" team.

Hough and Wicks began dating last summer when the pair were participating together on country singer Brad Paisley's tour together. However, now that the roles have changed and Wicks has entered into Hough's area of expertise on the dance floor, Wicks admitted to feeling a great deal of pressure to make his girlfriend proud.

"You have no idea! I have so much pressure since we're dating and she's won it twice!" Wicks said. "I'm going to feel horrible if I can't at least have a decent showing and I'm the one that actually has chemistry with her.

While he's enjoyed his time on Dancing with the Stars, Wicks said that the reality competition's new eighth-season "Dance Off" feature has not impressed him given the "Dance Off" winners have still been getting eliminated despite their victories.

"I've never been a fan of the dance-off. Here's the deal: At the end of the day, you can be the worst dancer in the world, but if you have the fans in your back pocket and you're going up against someone who doesn't have a big fan base but is a better dancer than you, it's not even going to matter," he told tvguide.com. "It's nice to get re-scored, but the fans should be able to re-vote. I wish it was done that way.

Wicks also proclaimed Sex and the City actor Gilles Marini as the "one to beat because he's consistently doing really well," but said that at this point in the competition I was still "anybody's game."

"There are three people who are continuously getting 9s and 10s, but there have been two weeks where the lowest scorers haven't been in the bottom two," he said The hardest person to beat is myself. I can only control myself and how I do."